Melissa (Mercyful Fate Album) - Touring

Touring

In December 1983, Mercyful Fate was booked to support Ozzy Osbourne in Copenhagen, but due to an illness on Ozzy's part, the show was canceled. Later that same month, the band performed a headline show in Copenhagen as preparation for their upcoming European tour.

The European tour started in Holland on January 19, 1984 at The Dynamo, in Eindhoven. The next day, they performed a set at The Countdown Cafe in Hilversum, which was broadcast live on local radio. On January 21, they performed in Amsterdam, at The Paradiso Theatre, where the skull of Melissa had been stolen from the altar on stage by a fan due to very incompetent local security. Then the band went touring Italy on February, where they performed 6 shows, and on the following March 3, they started their UK tour supporting Manowar. Originally, 11 shows were booked, but it turned out that Mercyful Fate would only play one. That first and only show was taking place at St. Albans City Hall in Hertfordshire. When Mercyful Fate's crew arrived at the venue with their equipment at 2:00pm as agreed, Manowar's tour manager told them to leave the gear in the street until Manowar were finished with their soundcheck. At 7:30pm, they were finally allowed to bring in their equipment, leaving them only 30 minutes to do so; the doors opened at 8:00pm. Then, when the show started, Mercyful Fate was told that they could only perform for 25 minutes, as opposed to the 45 minutes that they were guaranteed. Upon taking the stage, the band realized that their sound-engineer was denied access to the soundboard, naturally resulting in a terrible sound. At a certain point in the set, Manowar's sound-engineer began playing around with Mercyful Fate's sound. Then, after taking enough; they had no option but to demand some drastic changes if the tour was to go on. Even though Mercyful Fate's demands were backed up by their common record company, Manowar refused to comply. This forced Mercyful Fate to leave the tour and at a great financial loss to themselves, not to mention the great despair of their British fans.

On April 5, the band played a sold out headline show at Saltlageret, in Copenhagen. There, for the first time, they were able to present their new chapel; a fantastic stage set in which the band had invested a lot of their earnings in their never ending quest to deliver the ultimate show for the fans. Then on April 30, they began to work on the next release for the next 19 days, once again at Easy Sounds Studios. On June 10, the band performed at the prestigious Heavy Sounds Festival in Poperinge, Belgium. Beside Mercyful Fate, the bill also featured Motörhead, Twisted Sister, Metallica, Barón Rojo, Lita Ford, H-Bomb and Faithful Breath.